The ideology of capitalism and free markets reject the need for thought, knowledge, information, and any notion of public life

rob urie in counterpunch...

Occupy is Alive; So is History

Political leadership in the West has calcified atop a set of existing facts and trajectory that assure rebellion in one form or another until they are reconciled. In addition to the economic divides between wealth and poverty, employment and unemployment, opportunity and the lack of opportunity, there is a generational divide that has left youth around the world on the outside of economic life.

[...]

These conditions were not created by the young or by the multitudes that are likewise on the outside of economic and mainstream political life. They result from decades of ideologically driven policies that assumed that the secular deity of markets removed the need for thought, knowledge, information, and any notion of public life. This ideology supports a predatory economic order that has had disastrous consequences for vast majorities in the West. And yet it still drives economic and political decisions today.


[...]


[T]here are entirely practical reasons why rebellion is here to stay until these problems are resolved. What this rebellion will look like will be a function of material conditions as they develop and the systemic response to them. To date this response has been discouraging and events unfolding in Egypt add new degrees of pessimism. This written, rebellion is both necessary and life affirming.

we'll see, i guess...

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Henry Giroux, among others, characterizes what's happening as an outpouring of student protest

yes, but that's not all it is...

Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy

Within the last few months, we have seen an outpouring of student protests from all over the globe.

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Counterpublic spheres and modes of resistance that we once did not think young people could mount have erupted in a rush of emotional and political expressions and scattered demonstrations. Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted forms of social networking and political exchange.

[...]

Signaling a generational crisis that is global in scope, young people have sent a message to the world that they refuse to live any longer under repressive political regimes sustained by a morally bankrupt neoliberal world.

while there's a tremendous number of youth involved in the protests (which is very welcome and long overdue), i think there's also a significant number of my own baby-boomer generation who are equally energized, and many of us have either taken to the streets right along with the young - or would if we weren't tied up in other circumstances... being on a work assignment in southern africa at the moment doesn't offer much of an opportunity to get involved but, believe me, this is one thing i would put my body on the street for in a heartbeat...

i was speaking with my daughter in the twin cities last evening and she's been considering making the trip to madison and, if she does, my heart will be with her... i've been waiting for this kind of tectonic shift all of my life and i won't be relegated to the dustbin of the "elders"...

as a case in point, here's a 60-something who isn't sitting there watching "law and order" re-runs...

Anna Becker looks tired. Becker is leaning against the brick wall beside the entrance to Bank of America's Pearl District branch in Portland, Oregon, where one of over 50 nationwide protests by US Uncut has been underway for nearly two hours.

But Becker, a retired teacher, is just as energized as the protesters at the front of the crowd of about 60, who spill into the street and draw long, loud honks from the stream of cars driving toward the Willamette River.

"I have been waiting for 20 years for something like this to happen in America," says Becker. The words she has spoken in private for years are now plastered onto the canary yellow poster board she holds up like a shield: "B of A is al-Qaeda: financial terrorists."

Bank of America (BofA) is the first corporation to be targeted by US Uncut, the transatlantic offspring of the United Kingdom-based anti-austerity group UK Uncut, which held its first demonstration to protest corporate tax evasion in late 2010.

As a voice at the megaphone of the Portland protest said, "The United States does not have a deficit problem. The United States has a revenue problem." According to a 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, 25 percent of the biggest corporations pay no federal income tax. BofA, the recipient of $45 billion in bailout funds, shuttles its would-be tax dollars into 115 offshore tax havens. Meanwhile, budget deficits are cited as justification for pay freezes for public workers and cuts to heating assistance programs, Social Security, and other social safety nets.

good stuff, people... keep on wakin' up...!

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